Infection research

Primary care is the first point of contact for, and manages the vast majority of, patients with infectious disease. Primary care is also responsible for over 80% of all health service antibiotic use. Antimicrobial resistance is at the top of the international public health agenda and is responsible for over 30,000 premature deaths in Europe annually.

The CAPC infection group conducts internationally recognised research to improve the management of acute infections and the use of antibiotics in primary care. We use mixed methods and collaborate with a wide range of disciplinary experts to conduct research in five areas:

To develop and evaluate the clinical and cost effectiveness of interventions promoting self-care of infections at home

To improve the targeting and effective use of antibiotics

To investigate the relationship between primary care prescribed antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance

To develop and evaluate the clinical and cost effectiveness of interventions to reduce the severity of infection associated symptoms

To understand the social and cultural influences on the management of infections by clinicians, patients and carers, including health care utilisation, prescribing practices, and clinician-patient/carer communication.

For an overview of the research, please watch our YouTube video. More details on the projects are below.

We are a 15 strong group, who include a GP Professor, two Research Fellows, a Trial Manager, three Research Associates/Assistants, a Research Nurse, a PhD student, an Executive Assistant and five Research Administrators. Together, our success is built on the talent and commitment of our staff; our focus on impactful applied health research with high quality publications; our inter-disciplinary links within the School of Social and Community Medicine and across the University of Bristol; and our collaborative links with like-minded researchers at the Universities of Oxford, Southampton and Cardiff. With these three centres, we have an active multicentre research portfolio of nine studies valued at £14M, three of which are led by Bristol and valued at £4.4M, with a further £1.4M of Bristol-only led research.